Thursday, June 25, 2015

Selling Malloy And Connecticut

The two most abhorrent but inescapable duties of politicians
are: 1) selling themselves or their states to prospective investors, and 2)
raising money for political campaigns. Connecticut politicians who do not like
dunking for dollars hope to relieve themselves of the second chore through the
public financing of campaigns. Whether or not the first is a disagreeable chore
depends upon the individual politician and the condition of his product.

Adlai Stevenson, who could make a pretty speech, disliked
television campaign ads. Like most people, he confessed, he liked watching
television more than being on it. His speeches were long and substantive. Procrustean
television editors usually cut them, leaving the juiciest body-parts on the
floor.

President Barack Obama is not afflicted with the Stevenson
phobia. The knock on Mr. Obama is that his policies are driven by campaign
exigencies. And in this regard, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy follows in
the footsteps of Mr. Obama rather than the camera shy Stevenson; though, of
course, Mr. Malloy will have to travel miles and miles up fearsome cliffs and across
raging rivers to best U.S. Senator and former Connecticut Attorney General Dick
Blumenthal, about whom it has often been said that the most dangerous spot in
Connecticut lies between Mr. Blumenthal and a television camera.

Selling the budget – to meddlesome but marginalized
Republicans, to the moderate remnant in his own party, to critical reporters
growing more dubious by the minute – has been a chore these last few weeks for
Mr. Malloy. During his re-election campaign for governor, Mr. Malloy maintained
that the budget he would send to the Democratic dominated General Assembly
would 1) be in balance, and 2) would not be marred by additional revenue
increases. His budget was a disappointment on both counts: It was not in
balance, and it contained steep “enhancements” -- to be sure, not as steep as
his first budget, which contained the largest tax increase in Connecticut
history.

The two Democratic leaders of the General Assembly – Speaker
of the House Brendan Sharkey and President Pro Tem of the Senate Martin Looney
– refashioned Mr. Malloy’s budget, restoring some cuts that victimized the poor
and helping agencies ministering to them, while plugging into the budget new permanent
revenue enhancers. Thoughtfully, the Democratic majority in the General
Assembly removed pension liabilities from the constitutional spending cap, a
deft move that reduced the state’s deficit, at least on paper, and raised the
state’s spending ceiling. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that
Democratic progressives went on a revenue collection spree so that they might,
when their budget had been tucked into bed, continue the state's usual profligate
spending spree. Mr. Malloy nodded his approval to the budget and told his wife
to pack his clothes for a business trip to Europe, perhaps happy to put some
distance between himself and three of Connecticut’s largest restive businesses
– Aetna, Travelers, and the union reviled General Electric.

All three companies expressed misgivings about the
Malloy-Sharkey-Looney budget, which is heavy on punishing revenue enhancements
and light on permanent spending cuts. Mr. Malloy responded to the grievances by
reducing somewhat the profit busting measures the General Assembly had imposed
on Connecticut’s now crumbling business infrastructure.

While Mr. Malloy was gone, two other companies in
Connecticut – helicopter manufacturer Sikorsky, founded in 1925 by aircraft
engineer Igor Sikorsky, a Ukrainian immigrant ,[and
Colt Armory, founded by Samuel Colt in 1848, the manufacturer of the “gun that
won the West”, were crashing on the rocks. Colt declared bankruptcy, and UTC
announced that it would either spin Sikorsky off or sell the company outright.
In its glory days, Connecticut used to be called “the provision state,” because
it provided provisions to George Washington’s revolutionary forces.

The bright news during the last few weeks was that U.S.
Congressional Representative John Larson had at long last been successful in persuading
the federal government to include Colt as a part of its National Parks sites.
The museumization of the state continues apace:
Sikorsky, Aetna and Travelers, Connecticut companies all, would make fine future
additions to the National Park system.

Mr. Malloy is still actively selling to prospective clients his
plan to return Connecticut to its former glory as an economic powerhouse, but
increasingly there are fewer and fewer potential takers; this is what happens
when the takers get taken. Mr. Malloy began his career as Governor poking fun
at Republican Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie’s vow to catch Connecticut
businesses as they fled the state's punishing taxes and discouraging
regulations. In Mr. Malloy’s second term, poachers are everywhere. The latest
is Republican Governor Rick Scott of sunny Florida, whose ads are now tickling
the ears of disgruntled Connecticut CEOs.

Mr. Scott’s pitch is not unconvincing:

"Connecticut's recent decision
to raise taxes by over $1 billion is bad for businesses, employees, and
Connecticut families. Unfortunately, it doesn't come as much of a surprise.
Connecticut has repeatedly put their (sic) state on a treacherous path of higher
taxes, more regulation and less growth. And for many companies, the $1 billion
in new taxes may be the breaking point.''

Right-to-work state Florida, according to a Hartford paper, has
created over 879,000 private-sector jobs since December 2010, Mr. Scott points out,
while Connecticut has created a piddling 75,000.

One wonders if on his arrival in what used to be called “the
provision state,” Mr. Larson will give Mr. Scott a tour of the country’s newest
national park-museum.